Even the core belief of Bitcoin... that it is limited in production is a lie. They've already proven they can just fork off and create more. If the core developers own the currency why not inflate? Why are we limited to Bitcoin Cash? Why not Bitcoin Supra or Bitcoin Plus?

I don't know about that, the core devs are highly resistant to inflating the supply of BTC, just as they are with centralization of the infrastructure.

This is not true of the forks and altcoins, though, which are much more susceptible to the whims of their creators and majority stake holders (usually one and the same). If Vitalik wants more ETH he can make it happen, or if a bunch of investors are locked out of their funds because someone fat-fingered a line of code in a digital contract, he can fork it so they get their money back. And I bet if Ver thinks the world needs more BCH he can make that happen, too.

For better or worse, there's no single entity with significant control over BTC, that whitepaper concept is still very much intact.

The people I know who wouldn't be upset about losing $9K on a speculative bet, also don't need the money. If/when people bought it at 3 digits or lower, sure. The ROI is like a lotto ticket. You spend beer money on the chance to live the dream.

That's a tough one, alright. It's a much more straight forward choice of keeping a BTC that was purchased at $9 than shelling out $9k to get your first one. I think the best way to look at it, if you see BTC as worth speculating on, is to change your wallet and exchange settings to display the value in millibits (mBTC) and manipulate the psychological value we attach to whole (and round) numbers to our favor. If its value continues to grow, we'll all be talking in milliBTC, microBTC, or Satoshi units, anyways.

It seems like the last time I researched it, there were some studies that found a statistical advantage with investing an entire year's worth of retirement savings in January, because the market is more likely to go up than down, plus you get the full benefit of dividend reinvestment. I don't know that there's any consensus on that, though. But even if there were, as a psychological tool that helps motivate regular investment, I think dollar-cost-averaging has enormous value. And in terms of BTC, Coinbase makes it easy to set up a monthly buy, say 10 mBTC per month, which would be $100 today, but could be $40 next month, or $70 the one after that.

We've been through 80% drops before, there's no guarantee it won't happen again. It might go to zero or, as some hedge fund guys have been saying lately, it might hit $40 per mBTC by the end of 2018.

I don't know about that, the core devs are highly resistant to inflating the supply of BTC, just as they are with centralization of the infrastructure.

This is not true of the forks and altcoins, though, which are much more susceptible to the whims of their creators and majority stake holders (usually one and the same). If Vitalik wants more ETH he can make it happen, or if a bunch of investors are locked out of their funds because someone fat-fingered a line of code in a digital contract, he can fork it so they get their money back. And I bet if Ver thinks the world needs more BCH he can make that happen, too.

Well I don't want the dollar inflated so it's kinda the same thing. Bitcoin can literally double its currency overnight and not lose market cap? There's no investment we would let behave like this (other than internet stocks in the 90s).

I guess that the creation of BCH via hostile hardforking could be seen as equivalent to doubling the supply of BTC, sort of. And that could be a fatal flaw for BTC, but I don’t think it’s really clear what the long term effects of forking will be yet. So far it strikes me as a better way of launching a new altcoin, but it could also be the mechanism for producing a superior technology, too. Anything is possible, but I wouldn’t bet against BTC at this point.

A bar of gold. A disk of iron. A chain of beads. A card of plastic. A slip of cotton-linen paper. These things are worthless. One cannot eat them, or drink them, or use them as a blanket. But they are valuable, too. Their value comes from the simplest thing. People believe they are money, and so they are.

If every currency is a consensual delusion, then bitcoin, a digital cryptocurrency that changes hands over the internet, feels more like a consensual hallucination on psychedelic drugs. The concept of bitcoin was born in a detailed white paper published in late 2008 by a pseudonymous “Satoshi Nakamoto.” By 2013, one bitcoin was worth $12. As of this writing, it’s worth more than $10,000. Its value has doubled in the last two months alone. For any currency’s value to increase by 100 percent in eight weeks is, to use a technical term, bonkers. If the Japanese yen or American dollar did the same, their economies would plunge into an infernal deflationary spiral.

Throughout history, currency has taken one of two forms: physical assets, like gold or beads, and fiat currency, like government-backed paper and coins. Bitcoin and its brethren introduce a third category: digital currencies that run on a combination of game theory, economics, and cryptography—thus, cryptocurrencies. If all money is the sharing of an illusion, bitcoin wants to build a better way to share it.

Like many people, I’ve long regarded bitcoin’s rise with both wonder and confusion. To help me make sense of it, I started calling cryptocurrency experts and academics to ask, is bitcoin just a dumb bubble, like 17th-century tulip bulbs? An investment hedge, like gold? A currency, like dollars? The answers I got weren’t satisfyingly unanimous. I heard “all of the above” and “none of the above” and “nobody knows for sure, yet.”

It was the leanest way to transfer money. That's failed by high costs.

It was limited in its production. That's failed via forking.

It was a currency. That's failed because now it's a "store of wealth".

The entire value of Bitcoin was its liquidity. It was the fastest and easiest way to transfer funds globally. We literally talked about how we could transfer money to rural communities and it acted seamlessly reducing transfer costs. That was the value.

I'm buying gold miners like crazy. I am nervous that I look like Scion Capital. I can't tell you when this will erupt but I know it will.

This is not financial advice. I am a stark raving lunatic. People who would believe me have missed the greatest economic opportunity of our time.

Well, it would be nice to see my PM & Mining fund claw back that 50% loss.

It will. I don't know the fund specifically (I don't like funds) but once the Bitcoin bubble pops people will remember there is real gold. And I think there is a reverse bubble in metals because of the over-contracted paper gold, silver, etc.

None of this makes me happy. Believe it or not my wife still teases me that "Bitcoin can save the world". I was a true believer. I thought this was the decoupling of government and money. Now it's just a shitty speculative bubble. It's the only "currency" that you can't really use. Der Traum ist aus.

I hate being this guy. I wanted this to work. But its value, based on its liquidity, is gone. It's hard to shoot the rabid dog but what choice do you have? The Bitcoin people don't see le fin du monde.

I do not think I am being hyperbolic using the German for 'the dream is over' or the French for 'the end of the world'. When this collapses billions of currency units will disappear. Is that a good thing for the central bankers? Goddam right. I'd be stunned if they weren't working against crypto.

The Bitcoin people have done everything in their power to make it not a currency.

Mostly. My automatic sell program at 5% per year will continue, which currently returns my initial investment every month. I’ve got a lot to lose, on paper, when this all goes up in flames, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Funny, one's perspective. Just some musings from someone not so savvy or brave.

I'm continually kicking myself for not buying in when I knew of bitcoin at $2. A "mere" $200 "investment" would now be to me a small fortune. Taxes, fees, and disillusions be damned.

I would gladly pay what I might have to pay on lotto winnings to have won the lotto.

I finally bought in last week. All of $30 +fee. Naturally, too late to catch the 4k to 9k jump. But then, I'm a fool many ways around.

I'll keep buying in now, maybe up to $1k this year, but won't likely sell unless there is such a massive jump in value that the gains outweigh any consequences to selling into "hard" currency. Like it "could have been" now.

I may or may not use bitcoin as intended. Maybe not ever. Maybe later when the rules and regulations have settled into something reasonable.

Bitcoin, Etherium, next-coin, USDebtCoin, whatever, digital currency is here and now and the future.

If I had bought in then, or even at the fork, and had lost faith or perceived opportunity value in "bitcoin", I would liquidate smartly and quickly, pay the piper and tip the doorman as I thankfully take my winnings and exit the house, to look elsewhere for normal market gains.

But, then, I have no significant wealth to set against the consequences of trading unapproved digi-bits for approved digi-bits, nor even a reasonable understanding of normal economic systems.

Long transaction times and high fees do hurt BTC, however companies like VISA have created work arounds such as the SHIFT card which gives you instant transactions and zero transaction fees.

And the Lightning Network has essentially infinite transaction scaling potential and will allow for decentralized exchange of BTC and other alt coins without the need to process transactions on the underlying blockchains. They’re also saying it will be possible to earn dividends on BTC held on Lightning nodes, too.

Right now M2 is $13747.3 billion. Market Cap of Bitcoin is 218.5 billion. That's a difference of roughly 63. That's one dollar of Bitcoin floating around for every 63 greenbacks. If Bitcoin doubles again (hey why not?) 1/32. At $52,000 per coin there's an extra dollar for every 16 greenbacks...

What I'm getting at is if Bitcoin makes a charge to $500,000 or the like, the inflation will be devastating. It will literally empty our bank accounts. And most of us that do Bitcoin hold only a little there. We'd be wiped out as well. Forget about the poor as milk doubles.

If Bitcoin is successful, it could ruin the global economy as only a few lucky people actually hold it but it will chase up commodities.

What I'm getting at... Do we have to own Bitcoin as a global hedge against Bitcoin?

It's worse than that. Bitcoin's (BTC) only value proposition is that it will continue to go up. It's cost to mine is only valuable to a Marxist who believes in the labor theory of value. And a "store of wealth" by definition can't go down in value over time. If it ever did stabilize no one would be willing to pay the high transaction fees to get in.

So Bitcoin only has value if it moves up. We haven't tested what happens when it has a bad month... What happens with a day or two with no transactions or very low volume.

Note that other cryptos (including Bitcoin Cash) still offer the value as use as a currency. I'm very dubious that BTC is the one with a futures market. Shorting it is the only way to make money if it collapses (unlike legit currency trading). There is a growing conspiracy among some of my Bitcoin friends that the developers will be the first to short it as they have made it a coin that doesn't work.

Roger Ver took to Twitter questioning why Andreas Antonopolous tells audiences he's not a BTC millionaire. Andreas responded with all the personal reasons why and now he's being overwhelmed with contributions.

This is the latest episode of Ver behaving badly, this year something broke inside him.